Monterey Park: Taiwan Rock recently started parking in front of Ralphs, joining the likes of Kembo Food Truck and other Mexican, as well as Chinese, food trucks. This one is painted bright pink and features a well-hung LCD menu with rotating items and sadly, it’s mostly focusing on fusiony kitschy dishes such as Taiwanese grilled chicken burritos and Taiwanese sausage tacos. Let’s hope to more items like the Chiayi chicken rice. 330 N Atlantic

Rosemead: Longo Seafood Restaurant has opened at 7540 Garvey Ave. Typically, I ignore 7540 Garvey just because in the last 10 year it has been: Sun City, Crown Palace, King Palace, New Sunshine, ad nausea. However, the name warrants a mention simply due to its perfect match to Longo Toyota, where 90% (#fakenews) of all WSGV population purchase their first car. The Cantonese seafood joint also imported their own furniture from Guangdong province, so it’s safe to say the food should be relatively authentic.

Rosemead: Com Tam Kieu grand opened September 27, not sure how exactly it is related to Ninh Kieu down the street, but the Com Tam Kieu on San Gabriel Blvd is spelled exactly the same way, and the registering agent of the restaurant name is located at the first Com Tam Kieu on San Gabriel Blvd In addition to the large plate of broken rice topped with Vietnamese grilled protein, there are also grilled fish cha ca and noodles. Even better, looks like family decided to apply for beer and wine license! Com Tam Kieu is located at the old Pho Bang, which took over Pho 54 which no longer has an LA county outlet. 8450 E Valley Blvd #111/112

https://www.facebook.com/TaiwanFoodTruck/videos/1545425662163210/

Rowland Heights: TWSB is shutting down after this week. This purely Taiwanese food truck was so legit for 9 months, but cited staffing trouble as the reason for closure. Not sure how many other Taiwanese joints are using imported Taiwanese sweet and spicy sauce, but, we will miss you lots Taiwan Sausage Bae. Ownership is currently looking to sell the business. If I had any time at all, I’d be buying this truck and parking it right in front of bad Korean-owned noodle places in Ktown, like that pathetic place serving up doctored instant ramen.

San Gabriel: (way late on the reporting but…) Ding’s Garden opens a whopping 5th branch, surpassing 101 Express as the most successful Shanghainesey joint from Los Angeles, this is right after . The food tastes basically just like Rowland Heights, and the beef roll is way better than Earthen’s. In fact, it’s probably one the best version around in this stretch of Valley Blvd now that Flavor Garden has gone down hill. It’s certainly better than the hot mess served at 101 Express. 400 E Valley Blvd

El Monte: LAB88 has taken over the Vounge and has completely transformed the interior as well as the menu of the previous lounge (Vounge). It now resembles a Ktown Asian fusion pub with soju cocktails and a daily happy hour from 6-8pm, grand opening was Sept 8, but it looks like ownership didn’t actually change? 10602 Lower Azusa Rd

East LA: No 1 Noodle House has been replaced by No. 1 Healthy Kitchen. Despite multiple peeks inside, it is still impossible to determine what exactly is being served; it seems the menu is soup/pot based. No 1 Noodle didn’t last 6 months which it makes it the shortest restaurant survivor of 2017 so far. 5161 Pomona Blvd, East LA

And an out of town zinger: Sinopot, a crazy looking Chinese hot potting place, grand opened in Ktown on September 27. Ktown never had a legit hot pot place (short of faux/bad Koreanized-Japanese shabu shabu), so this one is a game changer of sorts. Also, Sinopot is an important place because it shares the word prefix with this very blog site. 3785 Wilshire Blvd.

One more out of town zinger: Paper Lantern Dumpling just brought Mama Lu’s xiao long bao to Irvine. Eat the dumplings, stay for the ‘gram. To get the most of the SGV heritage (Mama Lu’s son), order all the dumplings before thinking about anything else. Some say dumplings “go with Coke”, others much prefer chrysanthemum tea. 2730 Alton Pkwy Suite 101, Irvine